The present invention relates to a door support structure of an automotive vehicle, in which a door hinge is provided to slant such that a free end of a door is rotated obliquely upward while the door is opened and an energizing type balancer to assist an opening/closing operation of the door is provided.
Conventionally, it is known in a low-height vehicle, such as a sports car, that the door hinge is provided to slant such that the free end of the door is rotated obliquely upward while the door is opened in order to prevent the door from interfering with a curb. In this case, the energizing type balancer is generally provided for the purpose of assisting the opening/closing operation of the door, and a gas damper is conventionally used as this balancer.
The gas balancer has a merit that its energizing range is properly wide, but it has a problem that it is relatively large-scale, heavy and expensive. Meanwhile, in a case where a coil spring is used as the balancer, there is a problem that it has substantially the same scale as the gas damper and its energizing range is difficult to expand. Therefore, it is required that the rise amount (lift amount) of the door's free end when the door is opened is secured and also the balancer is simplified.
Meanwhile, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2004-155276 discloses a side door structure of a vehicle, in which a hinge axis of a door hinge for a front door slants such that an upper end portion thereof is positioned on an inward side of a vehicle body and also on a forward side of the vehicle body.
In the conventional structure disclosed in the above-described patent document, however, there is a merit that the front door can be effectively prevented from interfering with a rear door which constitutes a double-door type together with the front door, but there is a problem that a rotational locus of the door's free end and simplification of the balancer are not considered, so that there is room for improvement.